Thursday, March 26, 2015

Flashback: Rome Update 8

Flashback: Rome Update 8

Sunday October 17, 2004

Hey Y'all -

I cannot believe this is RomeUpdate8. I think I have more updates behind me than I do before me at this point. That's a weird thought. Well, I am writing a day early because tomorrow will start a wonderful and crazy week of midterms and Mom and Dad! I just received from an email from Mom about 15 minutes ago saying that they were off and that she could hardly sleep last night because she was so excited. :)

This past week was wonderful and included another girl coming to the Christian Fellowship group, theater rehearsals, the Opera FIDELIO, and a European Chocolate Festival in Perugia.

FIDELIO is the opera that is opening the opera season for the National Opera House here in Rome (Teatro dell' Opera). I planned on going last weekend, but I saw signs at school that the Student Government was organizing a group to go on Friday so I signed up for that instead and went with a group of five other John Cabot Students and had such a great time.

The opera house was BEAUTIFUL!! There were chandeliers everywhere, and I don't know how the school pulled it off, but we had boxed seats which were beautiful and had a perfect view of the stage. FIDELIO is the only opera Beethoven composed, and the cast performed it extremely well. The principles had amazing voices and the sets were top notch. The opera is in German, but there was a screen above the stage projecting
the words of the songs... in Italian, so it was a very linguistically diverse night.

Then on Saturday, my roommate Christina and I went to the Perugian Chocolate Festival! It was about a 2 hour train ride from Rome and we just had an AWESOME day! We got a little lost trying to find the festival from the train station and so we stopped and asked many different people for directions (in Italian) and saw a lot of the town on our walk.

At the festival there were streets full of tents selling chocolate of every type. There was chocolate pizza, chocolate bars, chocolate crepes, chocolate pasta, chocolate liquor, and the list goes on. And all of the items were reasonably priced when you consider Perugia is said to make the best chocolate in Italy. Christina and I ate our way through the festival. We had hot chocolate - REAL HOT CHOCOLATE... like melted chocolate in a cup and that is what you are served. They hardly even add milk, they sell chocolate warmed up.

It was an awesome day. We did lots of shopping (both for ourselves and for Christmas presents) and found ourselves finally getting the hang of conversing with Italians in Italian. It was a really cool, very cultural day. We also tasted the best tasting wine either of us have ever had. It was a sweet red wine that is SOOO good - and selling for the same price as water. The least expensive drinks they sold were for 1 Euro, a bottle of water, or a glass of wine. We found that comparison amusing.

Near the end of the day, we were trying to get back to the train station, and the way that the security men were directing people was into a building but the route down to the station was blocked due to a Spanish music performance going on, and through the building was the only way to walk down to the station. So Christina and I found a security man and were trying to explain as best we could that we were unable to get through the building due to this music and asked if there any alternative route. It was a very difficult exchange, but finally one of the officers just told us to follow him, and he took us to a local police car and drove us to the train station. It was really cool and we were extremely grateful.

The chocolate festival has a website, if anyone wants to check it out: www.eurochocolate.com and then you click on the British flag in order to get the English translation.

Today it is back to reality with a paper to finish and two midterms for which to study, but Mom and Daddy are getting here tomorrow so it definitely gives the proper incentive for working hard today. Please keep Mom and Dad in your prayers today as they travel, and throughout this week as they are trying to see Rome and see me, and I am trying to see them and study. I am SO excited to see them and show them Rome. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas!